Fishers grapples with identity crisis in first city election

FISHERS – Twenty-five years of explosive growth have brought this quiet suburb to a defining moment in its history — its first city mayoral election.

Once a tight-knit farming community, Fishers has become a cluster of rooftops, parks and shopping centers, sprawled across 33.6 miles.

With a spattering of office buildings and not much industry, many who live here work elsewhere. They came for good schools, safe streets and — initially — peace and quiet.

But now that it's poised to overtake Carmel as Indianapolis' largest suburb, Fishers has reached a critical juncture in its transition from town to city government. On Tuesday, voters will weigh in on which direction they want their city to take when the new government takes over Jan. 1.

And because half of the town's 81,000 residents weren't living here 10 years ago, past elections may not be indicative of the outcome.

For some, it is sufficient to remain Indianapolis' bedroom, a great place to live, if not necessarily a place to work or play. To others, Fishers' future looks more like Carmel's present, a self-contained community with a diverse economy, housing and entertainment, even if they might balk at the comparison to their urbanized counterpart.

"Fishers has kind of an identity crisis," says Greg Purvis, who led the push to reorganize the town as a city.

"Is this a bedroom community? Do you want commercial development? What kind of commercial development? There is this struggle to identify ourselves as who we are and who we want to be. And that's kind of an unanswered question right now."

With few Democratic candidates in an overwhelmingly Republican area, many of the city's first leaders will be decided in the primary election. Six are vying for mayor on an all-GOP ticket that includes a sitting town councilwoman, Renee Cox; the town manager, Scott Fadness; and a past council president, Walt Kelly, each of whom deserves some credit for making Fishers what it is — or isn't — today.

They're joined on the ballot by Maurice Heitzman, a transportation consultant; Marvin Scott, a professor; and Elaine Viskant, a self-described "trailing spouse" who moved here with her husband.

Fadness lapped the field in fundraising. As of April 11, he had more than $108,000 cash on hand entering the homestretch, more than 10 times all of the other candidates' combined cash on hand. But in a race that will hinge on old versus new, cash is no guarantee of success.

Twenty-three others, including three Democrats, are running for seven seats on the City Council, and two will compete for city clerk.

"It's a community in transition, and I think part of that transition is defining itself," said Dan Canan, president and CEO of the town Chamber of Commerce.

Carmel has the Arts & Design District, the new-urban allure and the U.S. 31 corridor, home to numerous corporate headquarters. Westfield is branding itself around the Grand Park sports campus; Zionsville has a historic downtown and that "small-town feel."

"(Fishers) provides quality residential housing and one or two places to eat, but basically, I don't see it as having any distinctive advantage over any of the other suburban communities," said Morton Marcus, a retired business professor at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.

However, some worry that creating a new city identity will undermine why they were attracted to the town in the first place.

"It had that small-town feel," said Molly Kraus, a businesswoman who moved from Indianapolis in 1993. "It was safe. It was quiet. It wasn't a bustling city."

"Is it going to lose the feel that most people moved there for? Yes," added her husband, Mike, a physician. "It clearly is (losing its character). You can argue that it's good or bad."

A split over TIF

The battle lines over the city's future came sharply into focus when the council decided the fate of a symbol of the town's past.

By a 5-2 vote, the council in February approved a $28 million mixed-use development that would demolish the town's train station but maintain its platform to make room for a 120-unit apartment building with ground-floor retail. The town also kicked in a $9.5 million parking structure using tax-increment financing, borrowing a tool that fueled the downtown renaissance in Carmel but that Fishers had shunned until the past few years.

"We've seen a lot of really good development, but we didn't give handouts like many, many of our neighbors," said council member Scott Faultless, the former council president who isn't seeking re-election. "To me, it needs to be debated. There's not an absolutely correct answer."

Fadness, the town manager, supported the measure, calling it a key element in reshaping the city's downtown. Faultless and Cox voted against it, swept up in the wave of discontent with the direction that some see the city headed.

Molly Kraus' petition to stop the train station demolition received 534 signatures, a drop in a bucket of 81,000, but she suspects most people had no idea it was being discussed. Fishers held open houses on the subject, but they were sparsely attended, which she blames on a lack of outreach and transparency by government leaders.

Kraus wanted the train station preserved, but she and her husband were more concerned with what's going in its place, and how it's being paid for.

"Carmel can build what Carmel wants and spend what Carmel wants because they have Meridian (U.S. 31)," Mike Kraus said. "They have all those office complexes and business headquarters; they have the tax base. You could say we (should) build a downtown to attract it, but they went the other way first, didn't they?"

The Krauses worry that TIF debt will bankrupt a town that has a mostly residential tax base. But supporters say a vibrant downtown would be a draw for businesses.

Economic mix

Whether leaders focus on its downtown or a new industrial area, Marcus says that Fishers has to do something to sustain the city economically.

"Fishers has to have a diversified economy," said Marcus, former director of the Indiana Business Research Center. "There's no community in Indiana or anywhere else that can support itself without having a mix of commerce — some industrial uses, some commercial uses. They're very important. You can't just do it with rooftops."

Marcus suspects that as Fishers grows, more people will complain about having to commute to work as lifestyle preferences change; federal highway studies show that millennials drive dramatically less than older generations. He also worries that city services will suffer without a stronger commercial tax base.

"Indiana's state legislature is taking away aspects of the property tax almost as fast as they can," Marcus said. "You just can't be a viable city from a tax point of view."

Canan at the Chamber of Commerce is concerned about another thing, too — boredom.

"The things that we think about Fishers are all good, but I think it's also important that people in Fishers have a sense of place here," Canan said. "We want to make sure that there are events here for people who are looking for something to do."

While the TIF mechanism may be new to Fishers, the idea isn't.

In 1992, town planners called for exactly the sort of downtown that's under scrutiny today. But the plan never advanced past the drawing board in a meaningful way.

"The Fishers of the future will have a physical identity," the Town Center Development Plan says. "It will have a 'centerpiece' or central places where residents congregate and call the heart of Fishers. Such signatures will cultivate our sense of place."

From Mudsock to Fishers Switch

For the better part of a century, Fishers had a clear identity.

"Mudsock," it was initially called, a nickname used to mock the few that chose to call this swampy backwater home. But while the residents shunned the name, local historians say that "Mudsock," established in 1872 as Fishers Switch, was a tight-knit farm community all the same.

"It had an identity – and it was a cohesive sort of thing," said David Heighway, the Hamilton County historian. "But it just didn't have anybody to speak of."

Nor did it, for more than a century. By 1979, when Heighway first started working at the Connor Prairie historical park on Allisonville Road, Fishers still had fewer than 2,000 people.

"1973 Fishers probably looked a lot like 1903 Fishers," Heighway said. "I remember when the intersection of Allisonville and 116th was just a flashing red light. That was just a little crossroads — you had Sahm's (Restaurant) on one side, and just nothing."

One of those who called it home was Larry Reynolds, a descendent of one of the first families to settle the area.

Now 73 and living in Florida most of the year, Reynolds recalls a quieter place — quieter, even than the Fishers of 1993 that the Krauses first came to love.

"It had one restaurant that seated about 12 people," he said. "One grocery store that had two aisles. No doctor. Not much of a fire department. No town marshal. No drug store."

As the town grew up, under the supervision of leaders like Kelly and former development director Wes Bucher, among others, it was often the newcomers who resisted change.

"Surprisingly, the older people who had seen the growth start coming were much more accepting of the growth than the newer people that seemed to arrive and said 'we're here now, shut the door,'" Bucher said.

One instance stands out in his mind. A farmer was seeking approval to subdivide his land. But his new neighbors protested, complaining that they moved there because they liked having the open space nearby.

When it was the farmer's turn to speak at the public hearing, he recalled how years earlier he had supported the developer who built the neighborhood that was opposing his right to do the same thing.

"It was a very emotional meeting. You could hear a pin drop," Bucher said. "(The farmer) had helped his neighbors and now they were fighting his plan."

The farmer's request was approved.

By now, most of the town's remaining farmland has been divvied up for development, and many of its residents have never known anything else. For the newest residents, Fishers always has been a destination suburb, and one of America's fastest growing cities. From a population of 7,500 in 1990, it ballooned to 37,835 within a decade, then doubled again to 76,794 by 2010, according to census figures. The town's demographics changed, too, from a homogenous population that was 97 percent white, to one that is 14 percent minorities today.

Reynolds' family business, Reynolds Farm Equipment, remains a staple in Fishers, even as he increasingly feels like a stranger.

"It's lost everything," Reynolds said. "The personality of the town has changed.

"I try to turn into my drive (on 116th Street) and I put on my turn signal and people honk at me to try to get me off the road. They're in a hurry to get home."

The Krauses may not remember Reynolds' Fishers, but they seem resigned to the idea that the town they know may not be around much longer, either.

"It does concern me that we're trying to be Carmel, and we aren't," Mike Kraus said. "It concerns me for the people that are gonna be here in 25-30 years — which may or may not be me, I guess."

When Fishers' first city officials take office Jan. 1, residents shouldn't expect a dramatic change in services.

But there will be key differences in how their government is structured, councilman Scott Faultless said.

• The city mayor will act as the government's chief executive officer, in charge of day-to-day operations as well as hiring department heads. Previously, the town manager was only in charge of day-to-day management, while the town council president served as the executive officer.

• The elected clerk-treasurer position will be replaced by an elected city clerk that handles record-keeping, and a mayor-appointed controller that handles the bookkeeping.

• The mayor also may create a law department and hire a full-time city attorney.

• Faultless said the additional positions likely will cost the city a minimum of $200,000 annually.